Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith [Paperback]

Anne Lamott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2000

Anne Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother."

Despite--or because of--her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers--her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness.

Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers." At once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny, Traveling Mercies tells in exuberant detail how Anne Lamott learned to shine the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life, exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anne Lamott admits that she's "ever so slightly more anxious than the average hypochondriac." When faced with a small, irregular mole and a family history of skin cancer, however, she remembers her faith in God and enjoys some peace--despite behaving "a little more like Nathan Lane in The Birdcage than I would have hoped." Author Lamott reads these wonderfully detailed postcards from her meandering journey to faith. With sharp and bittersweet humor, she recounts a past full of bad relationships with men, with food, with drugs, with alcohol, and worst of all, with herself. She battles her demons thanks to the love of her friends and family and her "lurch of faith" to embrace religion, that "puzzling thing inside me that had begun to tug on my sleeve from time to time, trying to get my attention." Inspiring but not dogmatic, Traveling Mercies is a treasure. (Running time: 4 hours, 3 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Lamott (Bird by Bird) reads a collection of her autobiographical essays, each a heart-wrenching detailing of a life grown up in a world of obsessions: food, alcohol, drugs and relationships. She tells of her childhood and early adulthood in Tiburon, Calif., where she started drinking and drugging young in a permissive 1960s-era disheveled household. The title essay, "Traveling Mercies," dwells on things "broken," such as her body, when she became a bulimic. Lamott's writing is honest and direct, and in her reading she presents her words with emotional insistence. She recalls episodes from her life with vivid ferocity, noticing how "everything felt so intense and coiled and M?bius strip-like." As she has a son, sobers up, her search for awareness turns spiritual. The sum effect comes across like a hipper version of Melody Beattie's self-help classic, Codependent No More. Simultaneous release with the Pantheon hardcover. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; Anchor Books ed edition (February 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385496095
• ISBN-13: 978-0385496094
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (343 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #29 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Theology
  • #36 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
  • #64 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Religious

More About the Author

Anne Lamott is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Grace (Eventually), Plan B, Traveling Mercies, and Operating Instructions, as well as seven novels, including Rosie and Crooked Little Heart. She is a past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

197 of 209 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mercies? Me, Oh My!, April 15, 2000

By 

Eric Wilson "novelist" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (Paperback)

I had no idea what to expect in this, my first encounter with Anne Lamott. The wide assortment of reviews convinced me to purchase the book--plus, the idea of reverence paired with irreverence, since we can all use a little humor to season the subjects that matter most...that therefore become so stinkin' divisive! Wow! When I'm not laughing at Anne's great writing and gritty insights, I'm pushing down that lump in my throat. Anne plants and waters the flowers of faith and grace, but pats down their seeds beneath the coarse dirt and smelly manure of life. I'm not trying to match her metaphors, I'm merely responding to the fresh light she's shone on my own recent experiences. This woman can write and, boy, does she have something to say. If she steps on your toes to get to the podium, so be it. Hear her out. She writes of a heartfelt belief in Jesus that I share. But she also drags out the skeletons that we born-again Christians are so afraid to let out. Ironic, isn't it, that those who follow Christ--the most amazing example of love and acceptance and forgiveness to the "unlovely"--are the very ones who insecurely point their fingers at those outside their box. I grew up in that box. I still love Jesus, still consider myself "born-again," but I, along with Anne Lamott, refuse to live in that box anymore. Jesus, speaking to the religious leaders of his day, called them "white-washed tombs full of dead man's bones." Anne, in her gracious, irreverent way, says the same. Mercy me! What a breath of fresh air!

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving and funny logbook of a spiritual journey., April 19, 1999

By 

Carol Mead - See all my reviews

This review is from: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (Hardcover)

If you're experiencing a lot of spiritual "static" as I am right now, this book will immediately make you feel better. It will assure you that you're not the only one to feel doubt and need and grief, and yet it will give you countless opportunities to release those emotions through laughter.

I have highlighted much of the book so that I can reread the great ways that Anne Lamott captures these experiences. She talks about grieving over her late best friend, saying she was, "thinking of how much we lose, yet how much remains." Then she says, "I thought maybe I wouldn't feel so bad if I didn't have such big pieces of [her friend} still inside me, but then I thought, I want those pieces in me for the rest of my life, whatever it costs me."

Lamott writes about trying hard to translate her spiritual beliefs into everyday treatment of others, and she's particularly funny when she writes about the mother of her son's friend. She berates the woman first for wearing bicycle shorts ("because she can"). Lamott says, "...she does not have an ounce of fat on her body. I completely hate that in a person. I consider it an act of aggression against the rest of us mothers who forgot to start working out after we had our kids." Lamott tries to be better, saying, "I tried to will myself into forgiving various people who had harmed me directly or indirectly over the years--four former Republican presidents, three relatives, two old boyfriends, and one teacher in a pear tree--it was "The Twelve Days of Christmas" meets "Taxi Driver."

I loved this book. I didn't want it to end. It made me laugh. It made me think. These are qualities I seek in my friends and my books.

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, eccentric, journey of faith, August 16, 2000

By 

Sophia (the Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (Paperback)

In "Travelling Mercies", Anne Lamott chronicles her journey of faith. From drug addiction, to alcoholism: through the deaths of her father and best friend, and the birth of her son, Ms. Lamott traces her spiritual journey in a series of moving, funny, and deeply personal anecdotes. One warning: this book is probably not for those seeking a traditionally-minded, conservative Christian memoir, as it is definitely not either traditional or conservative!

For those whose faith is less structured, this book is an incredibly funny, searingly personal and deeply moving account of one woman's transformation through faith. Ms. Lamott possesses the rare gift of translating her faith into day-to-day experiences and sharing her innermost, most difficult or stressful thoughts in a very funny, realistic, human way.

Other readers have mentioned the story of the woman in bicycle shorts (Ms. Lamott's "Enemy Lite."), which is truly hilarious. Other highlights included the"celebration" of Ash Wednesday, and her encounter with another Christian whose faith seemed to be quite a different order from her own. Ms. Lamott is also wonderful when she writes about children: whether about her own son or her friends' children.

This would make a wonderful gift for those who are "teetering on the edge" of Christianity, wondering, can this faith, this tradition possibly ever mean anything to me? Through these stories, Anne Lamott illustrates the miracle that is her faith, and leaves the door open for anyone who wants to follow. A wonderful, inspiring and very funny book.